2017-2018 Lecturers
Stanley Brand has represented numerous individuals and organizations investigated by and/or called to testify before the U.S. Congress. He has developed particular experience in the application of the separation-of-powers doctrine. His diverse litigation and counseling practice also includes representing corporations, trade associations, labor unions and individuals in major Department of Justice, grand jury, and independent counsel investigations and trial proceedings, including Whitewater, Housing and Urban Development, the savings and loan crisis, and the campaign finance task force investigations. Mr. Brand has also represented individuals and entities involved in contested election proceedings. From 1976 to 1983, Mr. Brand served as general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives under Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O'Neill, Jr. and was the House's chief legal officer responsible for representing the House, its members, officers and employees in connection with legal procedures and litigation arising from the conduct of their official activities. Since leaving the House, Mr. Brand has had a succession of high-profile, political and public corruption cases and clients, including former White House aide George Stephanopoulos in the Whitewater investigation, former congressman and Gore 2000 campaign manager Tony Coelho, former House Majority Whip Bill Gray, congressmen Dan Rostenkowski and Joe McDade, and former executive agency officials. Prior to joining Akin Gump, Mr. Brand was the founding partner of Brand Law Group, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm specializing in matters at the intersection of politics and criminal law.
Erwin Chemerinsky is the 13th Dean of Berkeley Law. Chemerinsky joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law. Prior to assuming this position, from 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. Before that he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law and Political Science at Duke University from 2004-2008, and from 1983-2004 was a professor at the University of Southern California Law School, including as the Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science. He also has taught at DePaul College of Law and UCLA Law School. He teaches Constitutional Law, First Amendment Law, Federal Courts, Criminal Procedure, and Appellate Litigation. He is the author of ten books, including The Case Against the Supreme Court, published by Viking in 2014, and two books published by Yale University Press in 2017, Closing the Courthouse Doors: How Your Constitutional Rights Became Unenforceable and Free Speech on Campus (with Howard Gillman). He also is the author of more than 200 law review articles. He writes a weekly column for the Sacramento Bee, monthly columns for the ABA Journal and the Daily Journal, and frequent op-eds in newspapers across the country. He frequently argues appellate cases, including in the United States Supreme Court. In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In January 2017, National Jurist magazine again named Dean Chemerinsky as the most influential person in legal education in the United States.
Marc Elias is the chair of Perkins Coie’s Political Law practice. His practice focuses on representing public officials, candidates, parties, corporations, tax-exempt organizations and Political Action Committees (PACs) in connection with campaign finance, governmental ethics, lobbying disclosure and white-collar criminal defense matters. His clients include numerous FORTUNE 500 corporations, national nonprofit organizations, lobbying firms, Am Law 100 law firms, prominent individuals, candidates and campaigns. Marc is currently general counsel to Hillary for America, the presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He served in the same role for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Marc’s clients include the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Governors Associations and U.S. senators, governors, representatives and their campaigns.
Judge Pooler engaged in the private practice of law in Syracuse from 1966 until 1972. She served as Assistant Corporation Counsel/Director of the Consumer Affairs Unit for the City of Syracuse from 1972 to 1973. From 1974 to 1975, Judge Pooler was a District Representative on the Common Council of the City of Syracuse. From 1975 until 1980 she was Chair and Executive Director of the Consumer Protection Board of the State of New York. She served as a member of the New York State Public Service Commission from 1981 until 1986. In 1987, Judge Pooler was Staff Director of the Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions of the New York State Assembly. She was Visiting Professor of Law at Syracuse University from 1987 until 1988, and was Vice-President for Legal Affairs of the Atlantic States Legal Foundation from 1989 until 1990. In 1990, she became a Justice of the Supreme Court, Fifth Judicial District, State of New York, and served in this position until becoming a United States District Judge for the Northern District of New York in 1994.
Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. is a partner with Munger, Tolles & Olson, and the founder of its Washington, D.C., office. Mr. Verrilli is one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court and appellate advocates. He served as Solicitor General of the United States from June 2011 to June 2016. During that time he argued dozens of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, was responsible for representing the United States government in all appellate matters before the High Court and in the courts of appeals, and was a legal advisor to President Barack Obama and the Attorney General. Mr. Verrilli’s landmark victories include his successful advocacy in defense of the Affordable Care Act in National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius and King v. Burwell; his successful advocacy for marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges and United States v. Windsor; and his vindication of federal immigration authority in Arizona v. United States. Previously he served as Deputy White House Counsel, and before that he was the Associate Deputy Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice.